As mentioned previously, I had to finish Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight before my girlfriend needed it back so she could use it for an assignment in school. I finally got through it, and, as it is the literary sensation sweeping the nation, I figured I’d give some thoughts about it.

First off, the first twelve chapters or so are absolute crap. Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m reading a book that is freakin’ advertised as a vampire love story, I don’t wanna waste my time reading chapter upon chapter of the main character, Bella, musing about what could possibly make the Cullen family so strange. I understand that there needs to be buildup, sure, but a third of the book has to go by before I get to see some vampire action? Lame.

Sadly, my second complaint has to do with the vampire action I actually wanted. Part of my issue with most vampire/zombie/monster based entertainment lately is that either the creature is some scientific experiment gone wrong that there may be a cure for (which, mercifully, isn’t the case here), or the basic premise is changed to fit whatever conventions the author wants to squeeze the creature into. While I can reluctantly reconcile the idea that vampires feed on animal blood because they want to be able to live side-by-side with humans, I cannot accept changes like ’sunlight is harmless to a vampire.’ No, that’s not true… I cannot accept changes like ’sunlight is harmless to a vampire, they just have to come out at night because they’re skin sparkles like glitter in sunshine.’

Let the horror soak in for a minute: I just had to write a sentence that had the words ‘vampire,’ ’sparkle,’ and ’sunshine’ in it. Frankly, I’m just glad that Ms. Meyer didn’t decide that vampires spend their off-time watching Care Bear marathons after riding unicorns through the gummy-drop forest to pick some cotton candy from the magical Sweet Tooth Tree, although I wouldn’t have put it past her.

My final problem with the book is the main character, Bella, is not someone I’d wanna put up with in real life, let alone in a story I’m reading voluntarily. All she does is complain about her life, which (comparably) isn’t all that bad, and go on and on about how mysterious Edward is. She’s about as interesting as a wet paper towel, and that doesn’t make for good times in reading.

That being said, not all is bad with the book. I did find most of chapter thirteen to the end of the book pretty compelling and enjoyable, especially when the second coven of vampires shows up and wants to make an appetizer of Bella, mainly because then the Cullen family has something to do. The biggest problem is that until that point there is no real adversity for any character to go through; Bella is accepted by a large group of friends, her father loves her and, while she’s ‘lonely,’ it’s only because she chooses to be, and Edward may have some conflict going on, but he’s so out-of-the-picture most of the time that we don’t really find out about it until the end of the book.

Overall, the book was a wild roller coaster ride of ‘meh,’ with a few sparkling vampires of ‘alright’ thrown in here and there. I’m told that the second book is terrible, but that the third is pretty good, so I’m looking forward to banging through New Moon quickly, hopefully.

I’m also hoping that, if the girlfriend should read this, I’m not single by this point, although I wouldn’t necessarily doubt it.